Topological phase transition driven by structural defects
Abstract
Structural defects, such as disclinations and dislocations, destroy the long-range crystalline or- der as they proliferate. In this work, we continuously drive a system from a crystalline state on a decorated honeycomb lattice to a hyperuniform amorphous state, by consecutively introducing Stone-Wales (SW) defects, which can be viewed as dipoles of dislocations. Using a topological Weaire–Thorpe Hamiltonian model to describe electrons in this system, we demonstrate that SW defects can cause pseudo-band inversions and, correspondingly, a reversal of the Chern number. Using adiabatic arguments and a computationally efficient spillage indicator, we predict the topological phase diagram of the amorphous state from the crystalline one. We explain the nature of the pseudo-band inversion through the renormalization of the hopping in an effective Hamiltonian based on a single SW defect.
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BibTeX
@misc{syrota2026topological,
title = {{Topological phase transition driven by structural defects}},
author = {Andrii Syrota and Andrej Mesaros and Pascal Simon},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.26586},
eprint = {2609.26586},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05771741v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Topological phase transition driven by structural defects
AU - Andrii Syrota
AU - Andrej Mesaros
AU - Pascal Simon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - HAL
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.26586
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05771741v1
AB - Structural defects, such as disclinations and dislocations, destroy the long-range crystalline or- der as they proliferate. In this work, we continuously drive a system from a crystalline state on a decorated honeycomb lattice to a hyperuniform amorphous state, by consecutively introducing Stone-Wales (SW) defects, which can be viewed as dipoles of dislocations. Using a topological Weaire–Thorpe Hamiltonian model to describe electrons in this system, we demonstrate that SW defects can cause pseudo-band inversions and, correspondingly, a reversal of the Chern number. Using adiabatic arguments and a computationally efficient spillage indicator, we predict the topological phase diagram of the amorphous state from the crystalline one. We explain the nature of the pseudo-band inversion through the renormalization of the hopping in an effective Hamiltonian based on a single SW defect.
ER -